Yesterday, Mrs. Reven' mentioned that Costco was out of the dog food she always buys and asked me to go looking for it elsewhere.
I asked her why she gets the brand she does and she said "because it's what the pet rescue agency was using".
OK, we've had Watson the poodle mix (say 23ish pounds) for five years (so he's about six now) and although he seems very healthy, I'd like a more compelling rational for what brand of dog food we buy than the one we're currently using.
Couch potato dog and gets a fair amount of healthy table scraps (string beans, skinless chicken, etc.)
Thoughts?
Winter (40 lbs.) likes this stuff. They freeze-dry meat, chop it into a powder and spray that onto the kibbles. Dog eats, saliva moistens the meat bits, flavor.
I can't attest to cost comparisons, but this works for us, YMMV. Winter gets raw veggies and diced chicken occasionally, but this works well as is.
I would try to avoid changing foods, as it can be disruptive to a dog's digestion. We've been feeding Science Diet since just after we got our dog as a puppy (now 4 years old). First food was Nutro, but we were seeing symptoms of possible food allergy and made a switch based on the vet's recommendation.
Vet's recommendation was Purina ProPlan, Science Diet, or Royal Canin, based on canine nutrition research.
In reply to 1988RedT2 :
Watson did get constipated one time and it occurred to me that there are no dogie laxatives on the market.
I was so excited thinking I had discovered a great product opportunity until I visualized the realities; not pretty 
I believe the closest animal related to a dog is a bear. Probably not true but our 100lb black sure looks a small black bear with a tail.) He also eats anything that a bear would eat and could even eat whole peanuts and spit out the shells.
We have always fed Purina Dog Chow to many pets over the years and as far as I know, they have never had a product recall.
We use this stuff and get it from Chewy delivered. We had a Lab got to 13yo and an Iggy go 17+ years eating it.
Driven5 said:
Floating Doc shared some really good info here:
https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/off-topic-discussion/what-dog-food/173091/page1/
Thank you for posting that link. I don't really have time to re-create it, and I wasn't sure if I could find it.
What I did do is add more information at the bottom of that discussion. It will be obvious, since I start the addendum with the word edit in bold, with today's date.
In reply to RX Reven' :
Over the years when one of our dogs got constipated or diarrhea, our Vet neighbor suggested equal parts boiled chicken, pumpkin and cooked white rice.
Chicken for protein, pumpkin for lube, rice for binder. It's worked every time for 40 years.
Every dog is different, so sometimes it takes trial and error before you find the "right" food. After trying a few foods over the years, we ended up with Nutro for both of our dogs. The older one does the Senior lamb and rice, and the younger one does the regular lamb and rice. Both of them love their respective foods, and with the older dog, it cleared up a really weird skin allergy that was causing her belly to turn a dark color.
JThw8
UltimaDork
3/27/23 10:04 p.m.
as a base we use natures recipie salmon and pumpkin. But we also make our own dog food so the kibble is kind of a filler. Our own mix is ground beef, ground turkey, chicken livers, shredded chicken thighs, shredded carrot, shredded squash, peas, pumpkin puree and a boatload of eggs (we raise chickens so eggs are in no short supply) On average I make it and vac pack it about once a month.
I use the better of the two Costco brands and swear by it. These $100 a bag (for the small bag) dog foods are insane to me, the dog eats cat turds if it can, I am not spending what amounts to a GT4RS payment every month on dog food! Read the ingredients, the Costco stuff is pretty darn good and if the doggo already likes it and has no issues, why change?
We switched to a primarily regular food diet for our dogs (we supplement with kibble and an egg when we're running low). We'll grab meat that is on sale (think whole turkeys), and then cook that up with oatmeal and a variety of veggies. It's more work, but we're happy to know exactly what they're eating. It also seems to have helped our rescue Husky mix, who was digging up the back yard like crazy previously (the trainer suggested it may have been in search of food). He seems to be always hungry regardless of what he's been fed, though, and their real food diet hasn't changed that!
It's a decent amount of work, but since we shop sales (and have a deep chest freezer), it's probably pretty close to what we were spending on dog food. It's definitely not for everyone, but I wanted to throw it out as an option.
My dog has to eat this stuff or he gets the runs. Vet recomended it, so far it's been go for him but it's pricey.
